Perhaps it is important for avoiding further misunderstandings, that the whole issue is NOT about accepting certain rules in a forum like shatters. We had them much before yesterday's incident. Of course to some extent this is necessary, and at CelestialMatters, where Christophe and I are Administrators/Moderators ourselves, we have some, too.

Yet, threatening highly merited senior users / Devs / Celestia co-authors(!) in "grand public" with "Banned User" displays like it was practiced with delinquents on market places in medieval times (!) etc., is disgusting and offending. Throwing all natural respect over board, Selden has treated grown-up people with high achievements in other fields merely as BAD BOYS who have never learned how to behave...

The very fact that Selden missed to see the huge difference between requirements of gigantic general astro forums like BAUT and our Celestia-focussed much smaller one is also deplorable.

I can relate to what Seldon says. I'm sysadmin at another forum and very often people ask questions about software they could easily find in the documentation or the help file. Some people repeatedly ask very basic questions.

Some are plain lazy, and that irritates me aswell. However, I always respond with a friendly but urgent remark like "it would be good to consult the documentation / browse the help file to make yourself familiar with the basic functions". I hope that with such a remark the intention "please do some work yourself, leave this forum to people with real problems" is clear yet friendly formulated. And the jerks won't be irritated and stressed: I'm the only one who will be when it comes to an online brawl.

On the other hand I'm continuously trying to help my 77 year old mom to deal with Internet, e-mail and an occasional program, and I know she enjoys the opportunities, but has absolutely no feeling whatsoever to find it out herself. Her questions are very basic as well, because her age and lack of experience prohibits her to grasp the concepts themselves.

In between there are all the other variations of people asking for help. I think Seldon's solution is a good one; if you read a question from a stupid lazy user, simply ignore. The result will be that they have to find out themselves in the end, and the tone on this forum will stay friendly and cooperative. All winners, no losers. Just my 2c.

CeeBee wrote:I can relate to what Seldon says. I'm sysadmin at another forum and very often people ask questions about software they could easily find in the documentation or the help file. Some people repeatedly ask very basic questions.

Some are plain lazy, and that irritates me aswell. However, I always respond with a friendly but urgent remark like "it would be good to consult the documentation / browse the help file to make yourself familiar with the basic functions". I hope that with such a remark the intention "please do some work yourself, leave this forum to people with real problems" is clear yet friendly formulated. And the jerks won't be irritated and stressed: I'm the only one who will be when it comes to an online brawl.

On the other hand I'm continuously trying to help my 77 year old mom to deal with Internet, e-mail and an occasional program, and I know she enjoys the opportunities, but has absolutely no feeling whatsoever to find it out herself. Her questions are very basic as well, because her age and lack of experience prohibits her to grasp the concepts themselves.

In between there are all the other variations of people asking for help. I think Seldon's solution is a good one; if you read a question from a stupid lazy user, simply ignore. The result will be that they have to find out themselves in the end, and the tone on this forum will stay friendly and cooperative. All winners, no losers. Just my 2c.

All the best,

I Ceebee, Welcome! too bad you are stepping here in such circumstances but my issue here is definitively not a problem with newcomers.

*Parenthesis:Hey Selden, one more welcome; Tx to take note.For Ceebee and others, Selden in the dev list was insinuating I was unable to welcome anybody. This is a blatant calumny because de facto I'm the one who has welcomed the most new comers recently and not so recently. You can check this by a simple search. I ask him some apologize but I'm still waiting... *End of the parenthesis

So Ceebee, my issue here is that I've asked since a long time (years) a better structure of the forum to welcome people correctly. What I mean are simple things that for sure could have been VERY effective to avoid the problem of annoying questions and preserve a peaceful ambiance for those working. What cost to give access to forums depending on your participation? Less than 50 posts, Newcomers forum with tutorials, links to resources, FAQ, etc... More than 50 acess to the rest of the board. But BEFORE all, when registration is done, what cost a pre formatted PM with a Welcome (for sure) and some notes about Celestia (not really a game) and the etiquette of the board?But nope, ChrisL don't want to administrate the board (and I do understand him, he have lot to do much more important), and Selden just prefer the easy way taking as reference some ultra huge communities that cannot be compared with our with a leitmotiv adapted to these communities: everybody in the same bag and that's all.

So resuming, I'm the one asking for a better place since along time, I'm the one welcoming most people, I'm the one trying to attract people with all I have outside this forum, I'm the one try to move people here to build a next UI that will simplify the life of all newbies and because I've turn out a few impolite/rude newcomers I become the reason why this community is dying!

So ok, as people here want to blindly support Selden without having the smallest idea of what is the real issue here, fine. I'm just out.

ANDREA wrote:I'll try to help the bad memory of a lot of people here.....................Who doesn’t agree… well, the universe is so big, there is room for anybody, somewhere else, with all our sincere greetings!

Now if you really do believe such people may help, then, ok we do disagree and there is nothing to say anymore.

Christophe, please allow me to say one thing, anyway:in your (almost) full citation of my message, you probably missed to copy and past the only important thing contained there, i.e.:

I've gotten sick of these attitudes and I'm going to have to take a hard line on this.

People who provide an inappropriate, sarcastic or intentionally unhelpful response will be banned for a period of time yet to be determined. It doesn't matter who you are.

Sorry Selden, despite I have a lot of consideration for your patience and peaceful attitude and despite I agree in the theoretical principle of an utopia where everybody is joyful and help each other, I disagree with your points.But first of all it would be good to stop playing small. I know lots of people here are pissed of by Fridger's way of communication and I am one of the few others having a hard time with dumb and unconsidered questions from newbies. So basically as I started with sarcasms after Mikej post, let's say that your message and other posts after this one are targeting some precise users. Fridger, I and a few others. But Fridger is of course the target N°1. Please don't say it's not true.Now, let's dig a bit the problem. Talking about attitude and others human factors are not important anymore, what is important are the facts.

Fact 1:We had, we have and we will always have unconsidered persons who will ask for stupid things. By stupid, I mean irrelevant/misplaced things. This is a fact, it's true an cannot be denied.Just an example, Mikej who don't know what is an executable should not post. Now, a personal note: I take his post as: "I'm a lazy guy, I won't do any effort, give me the solution to my problem, it's an order". See what I mean? I take it as an aggression. Now if at least the guy was here since a few years an had contributed in something, I guess it would not be the same, but this kind of attitude from a less than let's say 50 posts user is an aggression to me.

Fact2:Lot's of people here are blaming Fridger for all the bad in the community > old timers are quitting, newbies are slashed as flies, the guy is intolerable and always want to have the last word etc... Another fact that need a bit of digging.

Fact 1: Level of the board:Or we do want a board with a certain level of discussion or we do not.If we choose to keep a medium to high level of discussion, noob questions due to blatant laziness should been threaten without pity. That sounds harsh but this will turn away all lazy people who will never contribute in an effective way. This will avoid spamming the board with endless discussions about stuff unrelated to Celestia like teaching someone how to use his computer.If we choose not to keep a descent level, quickly we can end with a chaotic board and then there is a risk of erosion of the active users. Imagine more than 50% of the board spammed with irrelevant/silly/stupid questions, why a serious user would want to stay in the middle of this?

Fact2: Fridger the all bad guy, tolerance zero:Fridger vs newbies: we are in Fact1, I guess he have choosen to keep a descent level on the board.Fridger vs old timers: we are here in front of the tricky problem. And again I think we should look at facts. Celestia is (eventually now, was...) Chris L + Fridger. The rest of the dev by other dev men are small things (maintenance, adjustments etc) in comparison to what these two guys are doing (whoever say it's not true, please talk now, I'm curious to see who you are).Not only Fridger has been active at dev level but he also represent a barrier to keep us falling into easiness. He always ask for better stuff, better accuracy etc and so is one of the very few people who actually represent the ultimate end user, the guy who knows how work a computer, a software but also knows better than anybody else here the problem linked to astronomy and astrophysics. That again is a fact, not a fiction.So when I read people making open criticism on details (way of expression etc) and forgetting the most important part, that makes me thing that these persons do not accept that someone may be far better (from a knowledge/intellectual point of view) than them. And that's not something that can be tolerated because else Fridger have to quit immediatly and then Celestia lose something very, but very important.

So I think that all is a question of respect. But some here are using this argument in a way that arrange their own views. Perso I think one must gain respect. Thinking that everybody should respect everybody equally without taking in consideration the valor of a person in relation to the task we are working on is pure utopia.

Now Selden, if you want at all cost real peace and harmony and want to ignore the above points, I think it's not with this kind of regulation that you will do something (or yes, eventually kill a bit more the community).Just open a whole sub forum for newbies, and hide all the actual forums till they get 50/100 posts. They will have time to play, to ask, to do whatever, you will be able to teach them all they need without having people like me or Fridger on the back. (And eventually I'm sure you can even hide the newbie forum for people having more than 50/100 posts, this way peace is guaranteed...)

Now, perso I won't change a iota in my way to be until you prove me I'm plain wrong.(And as I'm not anymore in a kindergarden a ban means I'll be out definitively)

I haven't posted for a long time, but have been a regular visitor and as a general rule I have enjoyed following the progress with the development. If you were to say that my contributions have been miniscule, then that is probably better than I deserve, but that shouln't be a reason to turn 'lazy' people like me away from the forum.

My second point is that you label other people as arrogant, but despite his many contributions, the same certainly applies to Fridger. And I don't care what qualifications he has. Lately, you seem to have gone the same way, which is regretful.

I support Selden 100% with his decision. It is not that hard to limit yourself to making positive contributions. If you really can't help yourself, maybe you can open a subforum at Celestial Matters to bitch about it?

lukr wrote:My second point is that you label other people as arrogant, but despite his many contributions, the same certainly applies to Fridger. And I don't care what qualifications he has. Lately, you seem to have gone the same way, which is regretful.

Lukr,

if I was arrogant, I would certainly NOT have remained most active both here and in Celestia Development for more than 7 years! This really wouldn't make sense. I certainly don't need a software forum for "unloading" my arrogance. I could do it much more efficiently with my PhD students, for example [was that still OK, Selden?]

I agree however, that sometimes my patience is considerably stretched by some. Here Selden is unbeatable!

Yet, my reactions towards newbie questions do depend on the tone in which the questions were asked! I am not a robot and do enjoy emotions...Here I seem to be a little ahead of Selden . [I hope such harmless jokes are still allowed?]

As a brief reminder, here are just a few recent links, where I think I concisely answered HELP questions in perfectly friendly non-arrogant style:

in passing let me also mention that the user mikej, whose 1st post caused all this commotion wasn't posing his question quite as nicely, according to various people who were involved with answering: Let me quote from his post in the same thread:

mikej wrote:I suppose the answer you [edit: abramson] gave works for YOU! ...You said to " replace its executable" as there was a problem. What does this mean? Please be specific. ...Please, either release a new version or teach us how to use what you are all talking about

You see, to be fair, you should relate the number of my posts that you may find "arrogant" to the HUGE total number of my posts, which is about 7400 (top second after Selden)!

As Selden pointed out correctly, people tend only to remember the bad posts, which is neither adequate nor really MY problem, notably since nobody is perfect.

Now another one of your comments sounds quite strange:

And I don't care what qualifications he has.

Normally excellent results require high qualification. Are you saying that you are just interested to enjoy the excellent results ? Hmm, unlike you, I usually look very carefully at the qualifications that people have with whom I work....That is certainly a proven recipe!

My overall impression from your post was that you tend to be a little quick with attributing "arrogance" to people. Like myself, ElChristou is certainly NOT arrogant. I suppose he will be angry upon reading your judgement.

t00fri wrote:Don't forget this forum is NOT meant to be a CALLCENTER...

The new forum Celestia Help is intended to be the equivalent of a callcenter.

Yes, I am very happy with this new forum. Except it should have been installed YEARS ago!

I was actually referring to the frequent side aspects of callcenters (costing high phone charges), where people typically unload their anger and frustration, forgetting entirely about politeness. Again, perhaps in the US, the "home of politeness", people even remain charming when consulting american call centers .

Another pecularity of callcenters is that the callers usually CANNOT be banned by a moderator . Indeed, the operators loose their job, if they show the slightest hint of an emotional reaction to the callers' nastiness... So they must be VERY "mature"

t00fri wrote:...I suppose he will be angry upon reading your judgement.

In fact not at all because lukr is the perfect example of many people commenting without having the slittiest idea of what I'm talking about. They are in no way active members, came here once a year, see the tip of an iceberg and comment without for sure even reading the whole present thread (what makes me say that is that till now no one have brought counter arguments to my comments). So I really don't care about such comment because it's just null. At best in normal time I would attack the form that is just plainly incorrect (because of what I wrote above) but now I don't care anymore.

I have asked ChrisL to delete my entire membership (inluding post, all) because these last 4 years and a few months of efforts at many level of this project have lost their purpose and so all my interventions become irrelevant and useless and could be misleading in my absence. I hope he will respect my demand.

t00fri wrote:Don't forget this forum is NOT meant to be a CALLCENTER...

The new forum Celestia Help is intended to be the equivalent of a callcenter.

Yes, I am very happy with this new forum. Except it should have been installed YEARS ago!

I was actually referring to the frequent side effects of callcenters (costing high phone charges), where people typically unload their anger and frustration, forgetting entirely about politeness. Again, perhaps in the US, the "home of politeness", people even remain charming when consulting american call centers .

Another pecularity of callcenters is that the callers usually CANNOT be banned by a moderator . Indeed, the operators loose their job, if they show the slightest hint of an emotional reaction to the callers' nastiness... So they must be VERY "mature"

Fridger

Can Andorians like me go some place to unload anger and frustration? Not that I have much but just in case? We are temperamental after all.

mikej wrote:I suppose the answer you [edit: abramson] gave works for YOU!

I'm not sure that's quite correct, Fridger.

To everyone: The mechanisms leading to selden's exasperation would be easier to understand if you see that mikej was (ironically) writing entirely about selden's answer (to PlutonianEmpire, by the way), not abramson's, when he wrote "I suppose the answer you gave works for YOU! You said to ' replace its executable' as there was a problem. What does this mean? Please be specific."

Of course, mikej had simply misunderstood "replace its executable" as simply meaning 'copy the later celestia.exe over the original celestia.exe RC0' (Release Candidate Zero, if you're reading mikej ). That's why Chuft Captain's lovely explanation was dismissed by mikej's second post, he saw it as irrelevant, resulting on our crest-fallen Chuft-Captain giving some Kzinti-style outburst.

I imagine selden wanted to set mikej straight about that, but must have perceived that intervening posts with apparent off-the-cuff remarks appeared to have shooed mikej away, though I agree mikej was the most impatient poster there and actually there was no deliberate rudeness or arrogance by anybody, really.

Still, if you remember that selden's in the helpdesk line of business, he might have rued losing his chance to elaborate his answer to a 'customer', just because of those other comments. If you realise that, you might understand why selden's hoisted 'tone of post' right up to the top of the show.

I'd expect Selden isn't going to apologise, and I see Fridger and Christophe still post. Anyway, I note the 'Banned Users' topic has gone now, and measures are being taken to list basic help and FAQs more prominently. Can people accept Selden had a wobbly, but has calmed down now? Is there any reason why things can't go back to the way they were?

Hey Spiff, good to read you again! What drove you back to Celestia after such a long time??

I am sure you got this right. Understandably I became a bit allergic about the "details" Actually, I entered in person only at a later stage of the "drama"!

As to my only contribution in this "mikej" story, it turned out that my friend Christophe (ElChristou) tricked me out badly : He suggested to CC in relation to mikej

ElChristou wrote:Chuft, you're a king (as always), but seems it would be better beginning by the basis: what is a computer, what means "binary","hardware", "software", "operating system","executable" etc...

EXCEPTIONALLY, I did not realize that this was pure sarcasm of my French copain and felt I should express my honest opinion about this incredible situation (NO sarcasm, NO snide whatsoever!)

Fridger wrote:I think CC did a great job here.

Why should he further reduce his explanations to the level of "analphabets"!? We are living in "modern times", where a VERY basic knowledge of computers is as much a signature of basic education as is to know who happens to be the President of the UnitedStates (Bush? ) etc.

Seriously, I have little understanding for some people's snobbism to coquette with their total ignorance of computers...Which surely is not to imply that I expect everyone to be a computer buff...

Fridger

That was MY only contribution and I am still standing with it.

I'd expect Selden isn't going to apologise, and I see Fridger and Christophe still post.

Indeed, but you see, we next get this other crowd of people who have never made a sensible contribution since 4-5 years and NOW sense, their big moment of being judges has come:

It's really not right that Christophe or me might have been banned after such a long time of full power engagement and so many contributions to Celestia and guys with close to zero record since 4-5 years can speak up here and offend us with NO consequences!

Anyway, I note the 'Banned Users' topic has gone now, and measures are being taken to list basic help and FAQs more prominently. Can people accept Selden had a wobbly, but has calmed down now? Is there any reason why things can't go back to the way they were?

Yes fortunately not everything was in vain... Christophe is still totally upset and has asked ChrisL to eliminate him entirely from here. It's a scandal... I have decided to go on for a while (after some nice conversations with ChrisL before he boarded his plane today for Amsterdam.)

The project itself is unrelated to Celestia hence => Purgatory. But the subject is important, yet too complex for most. For such things I rather recommend our own site (CelestialMatters). There we talk endlessly about ISIS3, reprojections and the like...

Spaceman Spiff wrote:P.s., what is that excellent topic "(Map Projections)" (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13635) doing in 'Purgatory'? Shouldn't it go in 'Celestia Textures'?

It has now been moved.

Selden,

I wonder why you moved the topic, since the project of tiburcio is virtually unrelated to Celestia. He wants to draw some Earth maps in different projections and wondered whether Celestia might be useful in this context. But since he was mainly interested in various special projections that are ALL NOT supported by Celestia there is practically ZERO overlap. I gave him many alternative hints what he might use instead...

I hear common themes throughout this. Its no wonder some us us have chosen to stay away for long periods of time, and to only pop in with updates to projects. I have long ago chose to stay out of the fray when it comes to certain members of the community at large.

I have been a member of this forum for nearly eight years now. Hard to believe. Even though my present account only shows 7 years I did have an account that preceded this one by nearly a year. When I joined this forum I considered it a small community, but it has truly grown and I feel calling it a small forum is a big mistake.

Everyone must keep in mind that most forums have multiple moderators that monitor the site and help keep things in check. This site has one moderator for the most part. The only other moderator is Chris and he is seldom around. So it is up to Selden to do it all. Hey its his baby but I think he is being stretched a bit thin here. I think Selden needs a few lower level moderators that can take some of the load off and help keep things in check. But he needs to choose them very carefully and make sure they too are long time Celestia forum users and they have a history of being always polite and friendly.

The idea of separating the forum the into levels with new members only seeing the basics until they achieve a stronger knowledge base is an excellent idea and it is done on several sites. Celestia has grown in complexity over the years and I think a level up system is a very good idea. So maybe it is something that can and should be looked into, It might might help the little fish from getting eaten by the more experienced bigger fish.

As for a certain member that has over the years become one of the major coders of Celestia he must learn that even at his age he needs to learn to play well with others. I have gone head to head with him several times in the past. It has even come to either of us threatening to leave the forum and or project. He does love to play the card that he can and will pull the carpet from under us. I have personally decided to take a totally passive approach to him anymore. I keep my comments to him as curt and polite as possible. But if anyone chooses to they can go through the vast post base of mine here on the forum and see how he tends to answer and put things to me. His responses as of late haven't been overtly sarcastic or snide, but I personally always see his remarks in this fashion. It unfortunate I know but I personally can't read his remarks to anyone anymore without seeing them in a tainted light. And I KNOW that I am not the only one. I have talked with several other old timers here in the forum through private message and have found that many feel as I do and simply take the same approach that I have chosen. They keep it to themselves and keep there mouths closed in fear and indifference. Its a shame that things have had to come to this.

I for one am starting to give long thoughts on whether I even want to continue as a member anymore. I truly haven't launched Celestia for any kind of pleasurable use in over a year. I only use it now as a way of testing my textures. I have started to render my work in other applications for the creation of of 3D space art. I have personally been drifting farther and farther away from Celestia.

Selden wrote: objectionable statement deleted

Well those are my thoughts on the mater. I know they will not be popular and will upset a few people here. I have long felt the forum is in decline and I see this having to strongly enforce forum policy as simply another stage of that decline.

Celestia has reached a crossroads. It hasn't seen any knew technology built into it for years know. All we have seen are minor improvements to the rendering engine to keep it up to date. So what truly is its future. I don't know but I am thinking that its time to move on to other things. How this effects projects I have in place is still unknown.

Peace to Everyone,Don. Edwards

Selden wrote: Don, while I appreciate your feelings, some of your comments are, to put it bluntly, rude, and could be written much less antagonistically. Please make appropriate changes.I would not like to have to apply sanctions.

p.s. I have edited this post to remove one inappropriate inclusion.Please reread the guidelines, especially item #5 under the section "Please do not..."

p.p.s. The major objectionable statement has been deleted.

I am officially a retired member. I might answer a PM or a post if its relevant to something.

In the same spirit I am working on a Celestia.Sci (= scientific) module in conjunction with my longstanding plan of a Celestia.Cosmo (=cosmology) one.

With the implementation of Cosmology, exactly the opposite of what you claimed above will take place: Celestia will become a Space Simulator including a vastly bigger volume of the Universe than now!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++These modularized projects will affect peripheral users like yourself very little. The "mainstream" Celestia.core distribution is NOT planned to be significantly changed in character neither by me nor by Chris. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fridger

Fridger wrote:After Selden edited/corrected Don.Edwards mail, I have also removed here the part referring to Don's incorrect statements